great piece this morning by john howard. the former conservative prime minister of australia who pointed out that 1996 when they had a mass shooting where 35 people were killed, they stepped up to the plate. australia banned all assault weapons. banned them. just banned them. the entire country. then they did a federal buyback provision. and they picked up 700,000 weapons. john howard points out that would be the equivalent of buying back 40 million assault weapons in this country. but they did it and since 1996, there was some mass shootings in the decade or so before 1996. there has not been one since in australia. so these things work. australia took this national action. but here we have pretty tepid common sense actions on the part of the president and the vice president. and everybody is saying. much too far, much too far. president's going too far. we just cannot tolerate that. so to me, the debate is not have we gone too far. the debate really ought to be what's wrong -- why can't we go even farther and why are we do